NASA Statement on Soyuz MS-10 Launch Abort (With video)
“The Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 4:40 a.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 11 (2:40 p.m. in Baikonur) carrying American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin. Shortly after launch, there was an anomaly with the booster and the launch ascent was aborted, resulting in a ballistic landing of the spacecraft. “Search and rescue teams were deployed to the landing site. Hague and Ovchinin are out of the capsule and are reported to be in good condition. They will be transported to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia outside of Moscow.”
Glad the crew is fine. Not so glad at the situation this puts ISS in. Hopefully more reporting will come out in the following weeks detailing possible contingency planning. That one Soyuz on ISS has a limited lifetime. Tick tock.
NASA Admin Bridenstine needs to have a Come to Jesus moment with the Commercial Crew PM’s and shake that stuck_in_1st paperwork loose. Crew Dragon and its booster are gathering dust in Florida.
He needs to meet with the ADs in charge of Commercial Crew and tell them that he needs to hear only one of two things from them: “I can shave x months off of my vehicle’s first crewed flight without significant extra risk” or “I resign due to no longer feeling up to my job”.
I think part of what is holding up the first crewed SpaceX flight is that NASA wants SpaceX to have X number of flights under their belt with a totally unchanged launch system before NASA will certify that launch system as crew-rated. Since SpaceX recently did a major change of their launch system to the Falcon 9 Block 5, and recently did another major change to their COPV’s (composite overwrapped pressure vessiles), SpaceX still has to launch a bunch of Falcon 9s with the configuration frozen.
Anyway, maybe the number of F9’s that need to be launched with the unchanged configuration could be reduced, perhaps with some additional testing of the new COPVs as a trade-off.
Yep, holding them to a higher standard than NASA ever followed. After all they flew crew on the Saturn V with only one successful flight. And they are planning to fly crew on the SLS with only one test flight. And let’s not forget the Shuttle whose first flight was with a two person crew.
But no, SpaceX must make at least 7 successful flights on the exact same version of the booster (no improvements allow!) to be crew rated… No wonder Elon Musk moved on to the BFR/BFS.
And a drill hole in it… Not a good situation at all for the ISS or the crew aboard it.
Glad the crew are safe.
Yes, Thank God the crew is safe and the abort system worked! If you play technology roulette long enough with an outdated system, especially when quality control is getting lax, something is bound to go wrong.
Looks like NASA needs to accelerate commercial crew to a high priority and get at least one system working. I wonder how fast SpaceX will be able to do the first demonstration flight.
The safety board has already ruled out accelerating Commercial Crew further and claimed the current schedule is unrealistic and unsafe.
Yes, it’s safer to be launching NASA astronauts on a 50 year old system in a nation where quality control is in a downward spiral than on brand new American systems.
Seriously, if the report is any good they should be able to pin point why an acceleration is risky and solve it. In short, it’s time for NASA to show it’s NASA.
That 50 yr old system is reliable and proven.
They might be able to leverage that 50 year, thousand something launch history to shorten their return to flight and make all of our petty speculations here moot. 😉
Quality control has absolutely been slipping. There have been three different Progress vehicles which failed to make it to ISS. The most recent of those was due to a Soyuz launch vehicle failure. Yes I know crewed flights use a “safer” design of the Soyuz launch vehicle. But a “safer” design doesn’t help much if the problem is quality control at the Soyuz launch vehicle factory.
If you broaden the data to include Proton launches, Russia’s reliability of their “50 year old systems” has absolutely been slipping in recent decades. IMHO this is a sign of systemic problems in Russia’s launch vehicle industry.
The data doesn’t lie.
Unfortunately they won’t do that. It would require bold decisive action and some level of risk. As it stands you can barely get a coffeemaker without 3 levels of bureaucracy.
“solving it” might require money, which is simply not going to happen. You can pay to fix things in time or in money, only rarely do you get it for free
So you throw away a $100 billion dollar space station because you are too cheap to add a few million to commercial crew to accelerate it.
I’m not defending the decision, I’m saying it’s what’s going to happen. I suspect the fix is more than “a few million” (if it really were single-digit million, then yes, withing the realm of plausible outcomes)
Money to get ISS out of this mess might be available. There are some discretionary and contingency funds floating around, at various levels within NASA and the executive branch. We happen to have a President who likes doing visible things that look decisive, and he might not mind bailing NASA out of a mess the Russians got them into. (Note that I’m not saying that the Russians actually did get NASA into a mess, although that may be a fair description, just that it could be spun that way.)
Right now, the entire family of Soyuz manned launch vehicles and spacecraft have a very small number (1? Soyuz 18a 43 years ago?) of launch aborts. Do you know of a manned launch system with better statistics/reliability than that?
And the system has evolved a lot, no matter how similar the launcher and orbiter/service module look to previous versions. I’d see it as 50 years of heritage with a variety of improvements, but probably less launch QA than one would want.
As far as I know, the Soviet/Russian manned program had had no launch fatalities in 139 manned missions (even though one of the crew members of Soyuz 18a never flew again after pulling 23 Gs in that ballistic reentry). Seems like an awfully good record to me, considering the inherent risk of any manned launch.
The long track record isn’t too meaningful if things have changed at the factory. Excellent quality control in 1970 doesn’t mean much if the quality control in the late 2010s is poor. It’s hard to trend a small number of events, but it does look like Soyuz’ reliability has gone downhill in the past few years.
I agree, but how relevant is all that to an accident investigation? How much telemetry data does it collect to tell them what might have gone wrong?
It is a much simpler system than the Shuttle of course but with those mishaps NASA gathered up all the debris and sifted through it for something like a year before they flew again.
What were those yellow flares in the exhaust 30 seconds or so before they apparently hit the destruct switch? I don’t watch Soyuz launches, so I don’t know if that is normal or not. If not then this was an engine failure that might ground Progress as well.
That is exactly the type of reasoning that killed the crew of the Shuttle Columbia. “We have been flying the Shuttle for over twenty years and debris strikes haven’t caused any problems…” Really, that is the very core of playing Technology Russian Roulette. It has been safe so far…
Sorry, but that doesn’t follow at all.
The Soviets, and since then the Russians, have continuously upgraded the booster and capsule. They are certainly challenged in maintaining a safe launch record by a variety of factors, but if their track record is based solely on luck, it’s a better run of luck than the Shuttle had. Maybe they make their luck.
If that’s the case, it could be because (1) they choose and stuck with a simpler, and more fault-tolerant booster (an idea copied by SpaceX and carried by them to new heights) and (2) improved the avionics in the capsule without grossly altering the simple, dependable design very much.
NASA, on the other hand, has always wanted to build the most complex cuckoo-clock it could. We threw away a dependable set of launcher designs (the Saturns) and went instead with a risky and eventually fatal launch system for the Shuttle. Now, at only 2X the original budget, are we doing the same with SLS?
Yes, it does. Doug Messier has posted a list of Russian launch failures since 1988. The Soyuz launch system has failed numerous times since 2009.
http://parabolicarc.com/201…
It was only by random chance that the failures occurred with uncrewed launch until MS-10. Then random chance caught up with NASA. It was the same with the space shuttles. For over 20 years debris had been striking the Shuttle orbiter, but it was just random chance that none did enough damage to cause an accident. Random chance caught up with the Columbia, destroying it.
So yes, this has been an ongoing risk NASA has been ignoring by not making a replacement in terms of Commercial Crew a priority.
It’s root problem of course lays with Administrator Griffin who replaced the OSP with his Ares I/Orion. The Boeing CCP CST-100 is just an updated version of the designed Boeing submitted for the OSP.
So yes, it shows that NASA still hasn’t learned the core lesson from the Challenger and Columbia accidents. The result may well be the lost of the ISS as well if NASA doesn’t recognize that.
Abandoning the ISS, and returning to Earth on a damaged Soyuz means not only risks the lives of the astronauts aboard it, but would make it difficult to move forward with CCP since both systems requires someone on the ISS for docking. That means that the ISS would be vulnerable to any failure that occurs before Russia is able to send a Soyuz to it.
What a colossally blinkered viewpoint.
Was the Challenger launch disaster “random chance?” Come off it. It was management blinded by “manage for success” and ignoring straightforward physics and a weather forecast. Was the Shuttle main engine system safe to fly when the engineers at Marshall, when allowed by Richard Feynman to vote privately, estimated the rate of failure at 1 in 10 when the managers uniformly bought into the party one of 1 in 10,000? Was it safe to fly when every engineer I know who worked on the project at the time said their immediate thought on seeing the footage of the launch disaster was, “The main engine failed?”
Agree wholeheartedly with you that NASA hasn’t learned the core lessons of the Challenger and Columbia disasters, but neither should ever be called an “accident,” since they were both the results of managers willfully ignoring engineers presenting simple evidence for not just potentially but virtually certain disaster. The people in a position to avert disaster knew what they needed to avoid, and they didn’t, for bureaucratic/political cosmetic reasons, and astronauts died as a result.
That would be more convincing except for a few details. The loss of Challenger involved the solid rocket boosters, not the main engines (which worked just fine on that launch.) This is also the first time I’ve every heard of Feynman (or anyone else on the Rogers Commission) privately polling anyone. I’m pretty sure noting of the sort was mentioned in the Rogers Report. Do you have a reference for that?
See “What do You Care What Other People Think?” (Feyman, 1988, W.W. Norton, p. 229) – it’s Appendix F of the Rogers Commission Report, also available at: https://science.ksc.nasa.go… .
Discussing the main engines: “Engineers at Rocketdyne, the manufacturer, estimate the total probability as 1/10,000. Engineers at marshal estimate it as 1/300, while NASA management, to whom these engineers report, claims it is 1/100,000. An independent engineer consulting for NASA thought 1 or 2 per 100 a reasonable estimate.”
My apologies for getting the estimate by Marshall engineers off by a factor of 30, though that’s not relevant here.
See the Chapter titled “Fantastic Figures” in the Feynman book (pp. 182 – 183 in the edition cited above) for his polling of engineers and a manager.
I cited the engineers’ reaction, concerning the main engine, because it was first-hand hearsay in my case. I don’t know how many people were knowledgeable about the O-ring issue outside of Thiokol, but lots of people evidently were aware of issues with the main engine.
I don’t have a copy of Dr. Feynman’s autobiography, so I can’t comment on that. (And it’s Feynman not Feyman.) Appendix F of the Rogers Commission Report (which wasn’t even published in the same volume as the main report itself) is Feynman’s personal observations. I can’t find anything in there about his personally having polled engineers, or that anyone had done so. He does note (and emphasize) a huge difference of opinion about the odds of Shuttle failures, from one in a hundred to one in 100,000. I also can not find any statement that anyone thought the risk was one in ten.
Most accidents are preventable, IF folks only did something difference. Blaming Challenger on bureaucracy basically says the engineers weren’t confident enough to say a firm no, when asked.
Also remember, this wasn’t the only flight with problems with the o-rings of the SRB, there had better others, which no consequences, yet the problem wasn’t addressed until after the Challenger Accident. That was the counter argument, that the o-rings would quickly heat up and seal the gaps, like they had in those earlier flights.
Again, folks played Technology Russian Roulette, and lost.
The Thiokol engineers presented the data to their managers, as they were supposed to. The system failed above them. That is not an “accident.” The correct term for it is not appropriate in this forum, as both it and management inaction in such a case are obscene.
The engineers presented their information on ice strikes to their management, as they were supposed to…. should I go on?
Ice strikes were not involved in either the Challenger or Columbia events. The possibility of ice, in various forms, was discussed or at least mentioned in both Rogers Commission and CAIB reports. But it was not identified as a cause of either disaster.
And I’m not too sure I’d clear the Thiokol engineers of all blame. They could have been more insistent, or refused to go along (e.g. in the infamous teleconference when one of their manager asked to go off line for a few minutes so the people at Thiokol could talk it over privately.) The system for communicating engineering issues to management, and from Thiokol management to NASA management, was clearly broken. But engineers do have some part of the responsibility for that. Especially since many of those managers _were_ engineers who had been promoted into management.
“Especially since many of those managers _were_ engineers who had been promoted into management.” Exactly what Feynman was trying to get at. It would not be too strong to call it “sleeping with the pods,” and it would be worthwhile studying the phenomenon of engineers losing their concern and perhaps even their integrity about risk as soon as they get management jobs, but for some reason even the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report didn’t really address that issue, other than to recommend uniform training for managers.
Excuse me, foam strike.
That exaggerates the situation with Soyuz MS-9. The hole is in the orbital module, which separates from the descent module before reentry. So that’s not a safety issue. More to the point, that’s exactly how the current crew would have come back, even if the MS-10 launch had been completely successful.
It has been a priority for NASA. Congress has taken from the requested CCDev funding that NASA has promised CCDev partners and fed it to SLS. This spread the development funds across a longer period of time than intended.
No it isn’t.
And no system, not even your beloved Elon Musk, will create a system that is 100% safe.
Which safety board? I remember a review of the program a few months ago, also I remember the launch dates shifting by a few months at the time, and the review being a bit pessimistic even so (but not as strongly as you suggest.) But I do not remember it being specifically a safety review board. That’s different from a general program review in terms of the composition of the board and how much attention the pay to any one issue. (E.g. the review I remember paid as much attention to budget as to safety.)
ASAP; they’ve just said again that SpaceX isn’t ready to fly and Dragon-2 is a badly-designed deathtrap just yesterday!
Thanks for the pointer. I was remembering wrong, and it is a safety panel. (Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel.) But now that I check, neither their statement last July nor the one they made on the 11th of October, say anything about “deathtrap” or “badly-designed.”
For example, “We have not seen the program make decisions detrimental to safety,” said Patricia Sanders (chair of ASAP). “But current projected schedules for uncrewed and crewed test flights for both providers have considerable risk and do not appear achievable.” Note that she is talking about _schedule_ risk; that the planned launch dates may slip. Not risk of a launch failure when they do fly.
They also said that an “overconstrained” (rushed) schedule could be a risk to safety. In fact, they seem a little defensive about claims that the current schedule is driven by paperwork and bureaucracy. One member pointed out that there is a real need to review the uncrewed flight and understand anything unexpected in the results. I agree with him about that, but I’m not convinced about how much is required for that review, how much time is allowed for it in the current schedule, and whether it could be shortened (e.g. by bringing in more people to analyze the results, or by having more of the people involved put in 100% of their time.)
They identify two issues SpaceX still has to resolve, and three similar ones Boeing needs to resolve. Oddly, one of the SpaceX issues is the COPV business and it’s implications for load-and-go fueling. That’s odd, since NASA has already officially accepted the SpaceX approach. That’s not a describing a deathtrap or a bad design. It’s describing a design which is still in development and testing.
The Space News story I found also quotes John Mulholland (Boeing) and (Benji Reed) about the schedule. Neither one was worried about the schedule, although Mulholland did say they still had 15% of the planned tests to go. If they found a problem, he said they’d obviously have to fix it and that could affect the schedule.
They also were a little ambiguous about compressing the schedule. Both were quite clear that cutting down on tests or planned work was not on the table. But Mulholland did say something about putting in a extra shift or more people, if necessary, and Reed said something about compressing the schedule without cutting work (not as a plan, but as something they might consider.)
Ouch…my back hurts just thinking about pulling a 7G landing. Glad both the astronaut & cosmonaut are relatively OK.
If you watched the video of the escape-system test for Blue Origin, yanking the crew capsule from the booster looked like a pretty rough few seconds. But — better roughed up than dead.
The Soyuz 18 crew pulled 20+ during their accident. Then almost rolled off a 1000 foot cliff after landing on a mountain.
The positive spin: a highly successful test of the Soyuz In-Flight Abort system. SpaceX and Boeing haven’t done that yet.
I believe this is the second such “in flight abort test”. I believe they also had an “on pad abort test”. The Soyuz abort system has been tested a few too many times with crew on board, IMHO.
Yes, there have been two previous manned Soyuz aborts. One was on the ground, the other closer to orbit that did not require the escape tower rockets ( already jettisoned) . Today’s was the only one in transonic launch phase using the tower abort system. So I guess today’s “test” vaidates the abort system at all phases of boost.
At 2:54 of the replay of the Soyuz launch (available on spaceflightnow dot com), the escape tower is announced as jettisoned. Does this mean you are mistaken?
From the later audio it sounded like that was the escape tower firing due to the abort — but at the time the announcers thought it was the regular jettison.
There are two sets of escape rockets. One set is on the narrow abort tower, which is used while the boosters are still firing. Yes on this flight that escape tower was already jettisoned since the boosters were done firing.
But, there is a second set of escape rockets near the top of the aerodynamic shroud. These four escape rockets pulled the shroud, Soyuz orbital module, and Soyuz descent module away from the failed Soyuz booster.
If an abort is required after the aerodynamic shroud is jettisoned, the thrusters in the Soyuz are used to separate from the upper stage.
In the case of an on pad abort, both sets of escape rockets are used in order to get away from the launch vehicle a.s.a.p.
So once again the late Max A. Faget is vindicated with a successful abort.
https://wikivividly.com/wik…
Sergei Korolev ?
Your link goes to a website that seems to be a copy of wikipedia except with ads (which surely don’t provide any revenue for wikipedia). Also, I think that the LES tower abort motors were already jettisoned for this abort and the shroud’s engines were used… according to this guy – https://www.youtube.com/wat…
You reminded me of what John Young said about flight testing a Shuttle return to launch site abort: “Let’s not practice Russian roulette.”
It would’ve been nice if we could’ve tested that automated (no astronauts). Do enough testing and nothing stops that from being as regular business as a normal launch (except I guess you’re less one backup). Maybe we build a launch system from the ground up that is meant to do abort just a reliably as normal launch. That’s especially nice with a flyable craft with wings (separate+boost, then fly). I’m kind of just daydreaming here I guess, but I believe Dream Chaser had main propulsion that was capable of enough thrust for abort. Though it would probably have to abort to ocean landing unless it had some altitude. I guess you would still be less one backup since abort wouldn’t tolerate a main engine failure. Ok nevermind 🙂
Glad the crew are OK. I wonder how long before the Russian’s try to blame the ISS astronaut’s for this?
The Soyuz is only good for 6 months. They better get Dragon 1 converted in a hurry as I have said since ’12. Will probably be abandoned. I am going to write the House Science Committee and tell them I told you so. They might be riding on a sack of oranges yet. Dumb NASA.
Since an abort system is not needed for a landing, NASA could send a Dragon 1 for a lifeboat. Comes up converted to Crew. Needed supplies. It sits until it has to go and NASA has another standing by. Never be used. Just in case. If it had to be used, such as junk avoidance. Leave the hatch open if they have to. Use the arm to hold it in place and remove the bolts holding it in place. Take your seats. Ground control would then move Dragon away. Not approved for Crew though. Probably the fastest.
Looks like an opportunity for an extended stay mission and an attempt at a new space endurance record. Good thing the U.S. has the Dragon making supply runs.
In terms of the Soyuz attached, with the drill hole in it, do you really think it’s a good idea to use it for a return mission, given the quality problems the Russian program has had over the last few years?
Just a note: The oxidiser in the Soyuz MPS engines degenerates after about 200 days and the vehicle basically loses any reliable propulsion. So, MS-09 has to leave the ISS as scheduled or within a couple of weeks of scheduled or they’re not leaving at all.
Unless a replacement Soyuz is provided, without a crew, before then, which is not a bad option given recent events as it would also eliminate the risk of returning in a Soyuz which has at least one known defect in it.
Maybe Dmitry and his Merry Men will in fact have to send up an empty Soyuz MS as a replacement on a requalification flight. To add insult to injury the Russians might have to foot the entire bill for that instead of grifting the Americans. Or does Roscosmos also charge heavenly prices for empty seats ?
It’s the Russians. I’m sure they will find a way to both blame and charge us.
No, I can think of a better way to add insult to injury could happen next June.
The planned Dragon 2 demonstration flight may not end up as the planned, 2-person, 14-day visit. The similar Starliner is already planned as a possible crew transfer (i.e. the astronauts would stay up for a six-month tour, rather than returning after a couple weeks.) NASA has, I think, retained the option of doing the same thing with the June Dragon 2 flight. I can imaging the current crew staying up until June (or their returning in December and leaving ISS temporarily unoccupied) and the next crew going on on Dragon in June. That would mean Russians flying on a NASA-funded and SpaceX provided flight (injuring their national pride.) May we could make them pay for the seat…
Problem…I read today that the uncrewed test flights for both the SpaceX and Boeing vehicles require a crew on board to monitor their approach.
If that’s true and if the three remaining crew members have to evacuate on MS-9 in Dec/Jan then the U.S. Commercial Crew program is on hold until a while after Soyuz is flying again and routine operation of ISS resumes. I think THAT could take a year.
I’m curious how necessary monitoring from ISS is to the uncrewed tests. I can see reasons why it would be desirable, possibly highly desirable, but absolutely necessary isn’t quite the same thing. But the Dragon 2 uncrewed test might still be viable, in any case. It’s scheduled for January, and I think MS-9’s lifetime runs out around the end of the year. Shifting the test forward by a few weeks may be possible, and that would make the schedule work (I think…)
Exactly…then if they need to send the crew home on MS-9 the ISS can go crewless until the Dragon arrives on its crewed test flight. Talk about insult to injury, two NASA crew all alone operating ISS with no Russian baby-sitters. 😉
I think we can be reasonable. Both Dragon 2 and Starliner have room for more than three people. Of course we could fly some kosmonauts up. But funding might be an issue. I think the Russians have established the market price for a ride from Earth to ISS. We can generously offer to send their kosmonauts up for the same sum they have been charging us.
Well, ya of course, but this might be kind of short notice for such a change in crew compliment on either vehicle…and it is a test flight.
But after, sure. I think there was supposed to be at least one regular crew flight each that would fit into the timeframe of a one year return to flight for Soyuz…if it takes that long.
I think that people saying that Roscosmos or Onion…sorry, “Soyuz”, can’t survive this flight mishap aren’t givi g the Russians enough credit.
Also, I wouldn’t put it past them launching an empty MS-11 in December before any investigation results are in, and leaving their crew up there for a while…just to avoid the scenarios that we’re discussing.
Anyway, I’m no expert, but from the video it looked like a turbo pump failure to me. What do you think?
I think on-board monitoring is likely only be necessary when you have crew on-board to protect… in the case of an empty ISS, the loss-of-crew risks are somewhat lower compared to when it is occupied.
Possibly, but that makes the requirement for monitoring a non-issue. If it’s only required when the station is manned, then it’s only required when it is possible. That’s just a requirement on the crew’s schedule and, in effect, saying they can’t be off doing something else during a docking. A good, common sense rule but not too restrictive.
The MS-9 Soyuz launched on June 6, 2018. So its 200th day will be December 23, 2018. Merry Christmas NASA 🙂
50 years ago NASA celebrated Christmas by placing astronauts around the Moon. It looks like NASA will celebrate this Christmas by abandoning the ISS…
The Beagle 2 (British Mars lander) was worse. It crashed at 3 AM on Christmas Day, 2003. That wasn’t a happy occasion for the people working on the project. Of course, having to be at work at three in the morning on Christmas probably already spoiled it for them, but…
I think that will happen…or do you think they can do a credible investigation, mitigation, and return to flight in less than a year?
I definitely think they can’t get Soyuz back up and flying by the end of December. So MS-9’s lifetime is a hard deadline for a six-month solution. Getting Soyuz flying before June is a different matter. If the telemetry is unambiguous and the problem straight-forward to fix, then I think eight months is possible. If it isn’t, then eight months is very marginal, in my opinion.
6-8 months was my first layman’s guess…then I remembered how long of took NASA to fly again after Challenger and Columbia.
The Challenger and Columbia investigations turned up a long list of other, potentially serious problems. Fixing them added to the time before return to flight. And the problems involved weren’t quite what I’d call obvious and easy to fix.
The Russians never take a holistic approach to fixing problems. They’ll find the one thing that went wrong with the Soyuz launch vehicle and fix that one thing. Then they’ll declare that everything is o.k. and start flying again. That’s certainly how they handled the three failed Progress flights to ISS, why would this be any different?
Being able to send up a replacement Soyuz presumes that finding the cause of today’s abort and fixing it will happen soonish, something which isn’t evident just yet.
Hopefully this will be an instructive moment for NASA and those that run it: try to have a manned launch system ready to go before it’s necessary to retire a current system.
No, sending a replacement Soyuz, unmanned, assumes we don’t have much to loose if there is a launch failure. From a crew safety point of view, that’s correct. If MS-11 launches successfully in December, you’ve got a new vehicle at ISS and the crew can stay until June (when a Dragon 2 flight should be available.) If the MS-11 launch fails, then the current crew come down in MS-9 as planned. From an image or PR or possibly financial point of view, that might not look so good. But it is a safe way to increase the odds of keeping a crew on ISS until Dragon 2 or Starliner are available, or the Soyuz problem is identified and fixed.
“that might not look so good”
Not to worry. Nobody is looking.
Well, the module with the hole in it gets jettisoned anyway. Still, I worry that there are other problems hidden in the reentry capsule and watching that rocket explode this morning doesn’t do much to improve my outlook on that.
NASA should ask for a refund since Russia did not deliver their astronaut to the ISS, as paid for.
Or a free ride. That’s something SpaceX is doing for Spacecom. They’re getting a free launch of AMOS-17, in compensation for SpaceX blowing up AMOS-6 on the pad. I think the insurance covered the spacecraft itself.
Russian human space program in tatters. Sabotaged capsules, failing rockets. Good thing US has two transporation about to be deployed. Get those final tests done pronto and no more US astronauts on Russian vehicles.
From the video:
2:32 slight yaw, exhaust wavering
2:45 stuffed bear acceleration bob jerks
2:47 crew shaken – POGO?
2:51 escape tower jetison call (capsule being pulled away?)
2:51 debris ejected from back of rocket (CATO?)
Maybe this event will finally teach the political class that allowing large multi-year gaps in between HSF programs isn’t very bright. How about we make sure we have overlapping human-rated launch capability from now on. How about we never again allow a sole-source foreign provider to become our only way to get Americans off the planet. Hopefully, having multiple commercial human-rated launch vehicles in the USA soon will prevent feckless government decision-making from putting us in this awkward posture ever again. Stay tuned….
That’s part of the goal to CCdev. One thing that will be fun to see, is a spacecraft the size of BFS visiting and docking with a tiny space station like LOP-G. Each visit would increase the breathing air volume by quite a lot…if LOP-G stays that size.
Sorry about the topic change, but your comment made me think of that for some reason.
Especially since the pressurized volume of the BFS is now greater than on the ISS. But I don’t think they will risk such a docking as BFS is just too big. More likely they will just have a small transfer vehicle, maybe a modified Dragon2, transfer personnel and cargo to the ISS from a co-orbiting BFS. Much safer all the way around. Maybe the BFS will even deliver and rotate out Orion capsules to the Gateway (LOP-G) as lifeboats similar to what was proposed for the X-38 with the Shuttle Orbiter.
Or I read somewhere that someone is thinking of developing a commercial, reusable lunar lander for LOP-G. I guess that could be used as a transfer vehicle too…or a resident Orion or Soyuz? maybe?
The proposed lander could also be used as a transfer vehicle. Perhaps also Orion. But the Soyuz has too short a shelf life to be used.
Orion has a shelf life also. Three months I think I read.
Six months, at least according Wikipedia with a reference to a NASA Ames paper on the life support system. All of these vehicles seem to be targeting roughly six months storage time on orbit. Probably because that’s a good match to what ISS crew rotation schedules, and probably because that got written in as a requirement for Commercial Crew.
But calling six months too short has some implications. If it’s too short, then we’re going crew rotations less frequently than twice a year. That doesn’t sound good to me. For Gateway, as planned, the Orion which took the crew there is the lifeboat for the duration of the visit. For BFR visits to Gateway, get serious. I don’t see any chance of Gateway being built if a BFR with those capabilities is available.
Well…six months is too short for any part of anything going to Mars.
Maybe we give the crew something to do along the way to Mars. The current six-month lifetime is without maintenance or no (or very minimal) system checks. Instead of designing for multi-year storage of that sort, maybe the crew could change the oil and check the spark plugs every few months.
Yes, the proposed version of the Gateway will have a pair of habitat modules with a combined pressurized volume of 125 cubic meters. Elon Musk was indicating during his Moon Speech that the BFS would have a pressurized volume of between 1,000 to 1.100 cubic meters. It would be like docking an ocean liner to a fishing boat?
Somehow, I like specialized vehicles. You’re talking about on orbit transfers of perhaps half dozen people. You don’t need a 22 tonne lunar lander (the LMA concept) or a capsule with heat shields and reentry capability. You don’t need life support for more than a few hours, and you don’t need much in the way of propulsion. You don’t really need anything designed for launch loads, except for a one-time trip where it could be braced. Making this hypothetical space taxi larger than it needs to be would just waste propellent on every trip. I suspect you’d need under ~10 cubic meters, including unpressurized volume, not 25 or more.
“Making this hypothetical space taxi larger than it needs to be would just waste propellent on every trip. “
Agreed. Our point was not to complicate things by making a space taxi, but to use an existing vehicle already on station. The topic came up when I wondered how a visit by BFS to LOP-G might be handled since BFS is so huge.
I liked X-38, and always wished we had one up there.
Scott Manley is totally awesome. He has a video about this out already, and does a great job of figuring out and summarizing what happened and the ramifications for the existing crew on ISS.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Has it been conclusively established yet the MS-10 abort used the Launch Escape System? It appears that the abort occurred just about the time that the LES would be nominally jettisoned and the abort mode would transition to a service module based abort. If the reports that the maximum g load on the crew was in the 7g range, that certainly does not sound like what would be experienced during a LES based abort.
According to the timeline here: https://web.archive.org/web…
LES jettison nominally occurs at 2:40. In the video feeds, it sounds like the announcer declares the failure (abort?) to have occurred at 2:45. The anomaly may have started earlier but not declared until that time?
Timeline from above link:
Soyuz Ascent/Orbital Insertion Timeline
The following times are approximate. All times are keyed to elapsed time from liftoff.
T- :00 Lift off
T+ 1:10 Booster velocity is 1640 ft/sec
T+ 1:58 Stage 1 (strap-on boosters) separation
T+ 2:00 Booster velocity is 4921 ft/sec
T+ 2:40 Escape tower and launch shroud jettison
T+ 4:58 Core booster separates at 105.65 statute miles
Third stage ignites
T+ 7:30 Velocity is 19,685 ft/sec
T+ 9:00 Third stage cut-off Soyuz separates
Antennas and solar panels deploy
Flight control switches to the Russian Mission Control Center, Korolev
And the chickens from NASA’s foot-dragging on Commercial Crew to protect SLS finally come home to roost.
That would be Congress, not NASA. Commercial crew is no threat to SLS.
But NASA keeps adding requirements, moving the goal posts, that causes delay. For example, requiring the Falcon 9 to fly 7 times with no changes before having a crew on it is unrealistic and is a standard that was never applied to a NASA system. The entire argument over fuel and go is another.
Funny, because Operation Save SLS sure is treating it like an existential threat.
The situation we now find ourselves in is exactly the one we have feared for the last 10 years. We have no Shuttle-thanks to the foolishness of the accident commission and NASA Administrators, and we also have nothing else with which to launch astronauts to ISS for the time being. Maybe the current ISS crew ought to just plan to stay indefinitely. We;ll keep sending up supplies, use the Dragon cargo carriers as an emergency return vehicle of last resort, and eventually maybe Space X or Boeing can get them a return vehicle.
So any word on how soon Congress will be scheduling hearings on the crisis in access to the ISS? Sounds like it’s time to haul a lot of baggage out of the closet into the public limelight.
Before talking about rushing Dragon 2 or Starliner qualification, I think it’s important to think in terms of crisis management and stabilizing the situation. Until December, the crew on ISS is fine.
I think it’s highly unlikely that the Soyuz problem could be identified and fixed before then. I also don’t think Dragon 2 or Starliner will be available before June. Yes, the schedule could be compressed. But the most compressible is the paperwork and official qualification. That’s between the unmanned demo and the June (for Dragon) crew demo. I might expect to see Dragon fly before June, but not by December. Compressing the schedule that much is exactly the sort of pressure to launch which causes accidents.
The way I see it, that means there are two options for December. Send up another Soyuz (unmanned) or return the crew and leave ISS unoccupied. Those aren’t exactly original ideas, but those are the ones I consider viable. That raises the question of whether or not an unmanned Soyuz can dock with ISS (I think so), whether ISS can be left uninhabited for a few months (I think so; it could before 2000, but since then some systems requiring people for maintenance may have been added.) I suppose there is also the question of leaving the current expedition (or half of it) up there for a full year. But that’s not unprecedented and might not be record-setting although it would be close.
Given a solution to the December problem, we’ve either got a crew with a lifeboat good until June, or an empty station that can sit there for six months. Which means the June Dragon 2 flight can be converted to a crew rotation or reoccupation flight, rather than a two week visit. And that means there is no need to add more schedule pressure beyond the obvious “no more schedule slips.”
Keep the crew, launch the next Soyuz empty, it can dock autonomously like Progress can it not?. Compress commercial crew. This gets a fresh Soyuz and buys time.
I was suggesting that, with that fresh Soyuz, they actually wouldn’t have to compress the commercial crew schedule very much. They would have to make sure the schedule for the first manned Dragon 2 launch didn’t slip, and they would have to augment the crew. (So you could leave three or more people on ISS and let the current crew come home.) Basically, turn the first manned Dragon 2 flight into a crew rotation. NASA is already considering that for the first manned Starliner flight, and I think the contract with SpaceX gives them that option as well.
I’m not sure about Boeing, but doesn’t Dragon 2 berth to ISS? IIRC, you have to have crew on ISS to berth something.
No, Dragon 2 does dock not berth. That’s one of the changes from the current Dragon cargo vehicle. I think Starliner also docks, but I’m not sure.
I’ve heard that the only remaining delay for SpaceX is paperwork. There might be a little ship visit schedule stuff too, which is likely to go haywire now.
The uncrewed test flight for SpaceX, which is a CRS flight, and/or Boeing need to be moved up just in case the crew needs to leave on MS-9 in January…and maybe to keep them from having too, though no one aboard the ISS are trained for those vehicles.
There is a SpaceX CRS flight in November or December. Can they think on their feet fast enough to fly it safely with a Dragon V2 instead of a CRS Dragon?
That isn’t my understanding. The crewed version of Falcon-9 has yet to have flown and NASA will insist on a minimum of 7 consecutive successful flights before authorising deckings with ISS.
This is validating COPV 2.0 via 5 tanking tests. These will be the wet dress rehersal/static fires for DM-1, the In Flight Abort test and DM-2 plus the launches of DM-1 and the In Flight Abort.
So there is an upgrade in a d above the Mark 5?
Yes; a very significant modification to the COPV subassembly
And Elon Musk is going to keep up grading it as he finds ways to improve it. That is how it’s works in the business world, so NASA had better learn to get used to it.
But then again this is an agency still flying WB-57s that were retired by the USAF nearly 50 years ago. I bet if you look hard you will find some rotary dial wall phones somewhere at a NASA facility.
That’s not my understanding. Hasn’t SpaceX said the Block 5 is the final version of Falcon, and now all the development work is going into BFR? Of course, they might change their minds, but at some point, it does make sense to give up on upgrades. Learning from experience is great, but sometimes the experience favors some fundamental change (e.g. methane instead of RP-1 as a fuel.) Once you’ve taken upgrades and minor changes to the point of diminishing return, you’d want to switch to a new design. Then you can incorporating the lessons learned which are too big for upgrades.
In theory yes, but that hasn’t how it has worked with Tesla, software updates are sent nightly to your car after you buy it. When you wake up in the morning you may find you have a larger range or the ability for it to self park itself.
I expect the same software industry practice will apply to the Falcon 9, with constant “updates” as folks see how to get more performance or make it safer. It’s just how Elon Musk works. So don’t be surprised if there is a F9 Block 5.4 or 5.17 down the road as experience shows ways to improve it. The same will probably be true of Dragon2. But yes, there probably won’t be a Falcon 9 Block 6.
For major revisions and redesigns yes, but minor upgrades were being made to Shuttle until almost the final flight. Virtually all SpaceX business currently depends on the F9 so one would expect contued if limited upgrades as long as ti has customers.
Reading through the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel’s 2017 report makes me wonder. They imply that even a relatively minor modification could de-certify Falcon 9 for crew flights. They also expressed concerns about having two separate versions (one unmodified for crew flights and one modified for other launches.) That would raise issues due to low flight rates with the crew version, and weaken some of the arguments about continued reliability. Again, I’d like to see them assess the SLS/Orion program according to the same standards.
They had some dial phones when I started here, but I haven’t seen any recently. As to the WB-57, while it is an old design,, it was an elegant design when it was developed and has had major upgrades, particularly to the engines. TMK there is no other manned aircraft that can cruise for extended periods at such high altitudes today. The only rational step beyond the WB-57 would be an RPV such as a high altitude modification of the Global Hawk.
OK then…kinda tight even with their launch cadence…
2018
1- Inflight abort test somewhere?
2-Es’hail 2
3-SSO-A Rideshare
4-Iridium Next 66-75
5-CRS-16
6-Radarsat
7-GPS 3-01
2019 Jan/Feb
1-Crew Dragon Demo 1
2-Arabsat (Falcon Heavy)
3-CRS-17
April
1-STP-2 (Falcon Heavy).
The flight schedule is from Spaceflight Now…plus I pushed back the Falcon Heavy flights and Crew Dragon Demo 1 based on some other stuff that I read somewhere.
Of course, this Soyuz thing will probably mess that up somewhat. I’m posting it as a template of what they might be preparing to fly.
I just now thought of something. NASA wants 7 flights out of a frozen Falcon 9 configuration, right? Could that Falcon Heavy launch count at 3 flights toward this?
Seven flights, even though Orion won’t be held to that standard; neither was the shuttle or any other US system.
First and foremost, the crew is safe. The launch escape system worked. With that being said, it is imperative that NASA engineers go over the investigation by Roscosmos with a fine tooth comb. And I wouldn’t be surprised there will be kickback from the Roscosmos engineers if NASA does this.
But you see NASA and the Republicans was not worried. At the news conference NASA said the plan was always to de-crew ISS if Soyuz failed.
So all those ideas of what to do by us were ignored or laughed at. So no backup. No discussion by Con-gress (Congress). They did not expend any thought to having a backup. Too bad if you have something on ISS you want to do. The plan is to de-crew. Neither did GAO. No need to do anything. The plan is to de-crew. A little money to have Crew Dragon 1standby in storage or as a lifeboat. Cheap right? Nope, de-crew. What us worry?
ISS man said we expect that Russia will find the problem quickly and ISS will be going round and round. They want the money from ISS to spend on the Moon. How dare the Democrats cancel their Moon plans.
You see we take space serious. Not them. They get school children to name spacecraft. Like the 2 spacecraft on the Moon gravity mission. Eb and Flo. Get it?
BTW NASA TV would not say abort. I was not sure what happened. Republicans told them not to say abort I guess.
The time transpired between 7.21.2011 and (notionally) 2019 is the single event that soured me on NASA.
I wrongly thought that if anything could motivate NASA it would be the loss of US access to ISS. I thought we’d see the resurgence of the old can-do attitude.
Instead, NASA has developed a rich litany of excuses that are “revised and extended” as needed.
And now, this.
Does anyone with responsibility even know what shame is?
(And before someone starts up with “it’s Congress’ fault!” — don’t bother. My remarks apply to everyone, both collectively and individually).
It just shows you that space is not important. If human spaceflight was actually important there would be no hand wringing and Boeing and SpaceX would be launching….
The reason SpaceX is not launching is because Boeing isn’t ready and NASA through ASAP is making SpaceX wait for them.
I know .. because human spaceflight isn’t important .. if it was .. this would not happen…
Wow that’s ridiculous. They can’t do a test without a human even? What exactly is going on? Surely they could test launch if they wanted to.
I took a look at the 2017 Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel (ASAP), after reading some of the press reports and quotes from their recent meeting. I’m really concerned about a double standard for Dragon 2 (and Starliner) compared to SLS/Orion or Soyuz.
The stated logic for delaying a test flight isn’t about letting Boeing catch up. It’s that there are a number of outstanding problems. The COPV thing, which I think NASA and SpaceX consider solved while ASAP seems to be saying “maybe” and an unspecified issue involving parachutes (unexpected behavior but not a failure, since they mentioned it occurring on context of successful, unmanned Dragon cargo flights.)
As far as the unmanned test goes, the ASAP position seems to be that the unmanned test must be of the final flight configuration. If anything makes SpaceX change Falcon 9 or Dragon 2, in more or less any way, after the unmanned test, that would invalidate the unmanned test. Since they also have reservations of separate manned and unmanned versions of Falcon 9, that might also be an obstacle to any future changes to Falcon 9 (for the duration of the commercial crew contract.)
It bothers me that neither Soyuz nor SLS/Orion are being held to similar standards.
Russia said one of side rockets failed to separate correctly and hit the center rocket. The computer aborted. If they find the parts or assembly images show what caused it it may not take long. Too bad they did not have the NASA super cameras or an on board one. At least I have not seen those. But they might do like NASA and not show all the views. ISS manager said that they would not put just Russian crew on the next flight. He said it does not work that way. The astronaut said it takes 5 years to prepare for a flight. So no Dragon 1 with an escape tower or SRM in the trunk. Dragon 1 has a proven flight record that should be considered. A safe lifeboat. Maybe the crew could be trained by video and not take 5 years if it is alright with the Crew. Dragon 2 and CST-100 has no record at all. Almaz is proven. Might be able to dock since all of Russia stuff is so old. It even has a capsule to return in. Silly stuff of course. They can’t put a refresher Soyuz on unless they can use another type of launcher. Expensive if the same thing happens again. They have to find the cause.
The video Space Tourists shows that the booster is recovered. Yep, Russia has been recovering boosters long before SpaceX or NASA. They do need a little more refurb though. I hope the people shown are official. It would be bad if the part needed to be looked at has been taken by a scavenger. I can only find shorts, but I have the video on DVR. A lot easier than finding in the Ocean. There is very little damage. They rotate flat and land soft. Not as good as F9, but they are intact. Flattened slightly. The engine nozzle on the low side is flattened. The ones on top look ok and might could be used again. They will need a lot of people or a bulldozer to turnover to look at the side on the ground. Amazing stuff. I posted some stills a long time ago if they can be found. Even Proton way down range is intact. Right by someones house. I could never believe that NASA would do that to those poor people. Grass fires near houses they said. I complained but since the last 3 heads of NASA are Republican and they don’t like poor people nothing was done. Same for the Space committees in Congress. ISS comes first. Why worry about a few poor people. I don’t remember if I complained to Obama. I know I did not complain to the State Dept. I don’t see how but I remember reading that Russia had changed the trajectory to miss these people. There is freedom of speech in the US?
Both Russia and China have had complaints about both physical and toxic hazards of falling boosters from people living downrange of the launch sites, and both have constructed coastal launch sites, but in Russia progress has been slow and only China has reached the point where the new launch site on Hainan Island has become operational.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
Vostochny is operational, if you’ll allow that two successful launches and one failure in three years “operational.” So Russia technically has a east coast launch site. Also, it’s worth noting that the Russians drop their lower stages on another country (Kazakhstan) rather their own country. It isn’t clear to me which way that cuts. Are complaints from a foreign government more or less significant their complaints your own citizens?